As a part of working for Breastfeeding USA, many Breastfeeding Counselors have online interactions with breastfeeding mothers and the general public. Breastfeeding USA creates organizational email addresses for all BCs to use in their work, since a separate email address can help protect the BC’s privacy and present a more professional appearance for the organization. These accounts belong to Breastfeeding USA, and can be accessed by the organization. They are closed when a BC retires.
Organizational Email Addresses
All Breastfeeding USA volunteers are assigned an email account when they are accredited or oriented. Addresses have the form firstname.lastname@breastfeedingusa.org. Upon accreditation or completion of volunteer orientation, each BC or volunteer receives an email from the website workgroup with instructions on claiming and setting up the email account, and instructions are also found here. (For those who are interested, you may request an "alias" email address (usually your first name and last initial or two) that will forward to your full name address. To request an alias, email GoogleAdmin@breastfeedingusa.org.)
Breastfeeding Counselors should sign correspondence with their name followed by Breastfeeding Counselor. BCs who work in an organizational workgroup and send email correspondence as part of workgroup responsibilities may also set up the group email address as their “send from” address, and would include the workgroup or committee name in their signature. For example:
Jane Doe, Breastfeeding Counselor
Volunteer Support Committee
Breastfeeding USA
Instructions for setting up an email program to allow you to send from a workgroup email.
Using the organizational email and signature line gives correspondence a more professional image and clarifies the sender’s role, and volunteers are asked to use their Breastfeeding USA addresses for all work they do for the organization, and not to use it for other business or purely social purposes. Using the organizational email address also ensures that a copy of the email is stored in email archives for later reference if necessary, since every organizational email address also forwards to an email archive that belongs to Breastfeeding USA.
Community Chapter Set-up
When Breastfeeding Counselors establish a new Community Chapter, they determine the services that the Chapter will provide. If the Chapter chooses to provide email help services, an email address should be published as contact information on the Find a BC page of the website. Breastfeeding Counselors may use their personal organizational email addresses (firstname.lastname@breastfeedingusa.org) for contact information, realizing that these are widely publicized. Or, they can request a Chapter group address, such as chaptername@breastfeedingusa.org which can include several BCs working together.
Breastfeeding Counselors can also request a chapter email to associate with a Google Voice number, for example, phone.chaptername@breastfeedingusa.org. A Google Voice number lets a BC have a separate contact number to share with the public (rather than her personal phone number), and calls to this number can be forwarded to the BC’s own phone. It can also be set so that calls don't ring through to a BC’s actual phone. Instead, callers are directed to leave a voicemail message, and then that voicemail message is transcribed and emailed to all of the BCs in the Chapter at the phone.chaptername@breastfeedingusa.org email address.
To explore or request a community Chapter email address, please contact website@breastfeedingusa.org.